I’ve been floating around again lately
In a dream state of
messages and coincidences
My calendar an imagined
Series of appointments
With a destiny that started
On a cold day long ago
I know my mind makes up these stories
To comfort me during my stay here
Like Dream #113
Recalling the day
the pediatrician told me
I was a tiger
Because I did not cry
When my ear was split open by a nail
I wasn’t even 7 years old
When it happened,
I just held it with my hand
And told my mom “I’m sorry
but I think I did something wrong”
Now I look back and know
that pain was nothing
compared to what was brewing
in my heart
A few years later came a diagnosis
of an arrhythmia – a murmur
Probably a form of tachycardia
I remember my doctor
Who oddly reminded me of Abraham Lincoln
listening to my heart with
The cold, gentle stethoscope,
the serious deep breaths
and our shared concentration
for what would happen next
And then a telling
of this inexplicable condition,
not too uncommon,
probably not a big deal
we’ll just monitor it over time
It all makes sense to me looking back
that my heart was already in rhythm
with the pain of existence,
the pain of the world,
when I was just a child

And then Dream #114
Where I am visited
by ones who lost hope
In this month of October
And I am able to tenderly sing
Though you are like familyI’m never gonna know you now but I will love you anyhow
As sensitive as I think I am
I did not realize the depths
of your pain and injury, or mine
And I see that there are no words or logic
I can offer to you or the stars
to make you feel better or understand
Yet words and art and love
are all I have to offer in this earthly place
And they are my only hope for
wounded travelers like you and me
I still experience this feeling
A deep knowing
that all of us are these divine beings
But we carry so much pain that we can’t see it
So we build walls and towers and stories
Thinking we are protected
But our light just gets obscured
and hidden even from ourselves
When I see, speak of and paint
the darkness and light
It comes with a core sadness
I feel about the world
and all its towers and walls
It’s why I can barely face the world some days
Why I’m wide awake at 3am on others
And why my heart inexplicably flutters
with both a sense of pain and love —
the tachycardia
I see the suffering everywhere
I see us passing it on to each other
Handing it out for free like
an embroidered old coat
we are trying to get rid of
I feel it in myself too
And it makes me helpless
So I write and draw
Make up words and sentences
Paint a messy picture
Sing a sad song
Build my own stories
One that has a tower
that looks like a spaceship
I try to communicate
Anything to ease the feelings
To find a way to live
and hope that in this one wild and precious life
We discover the work we need to do to heal
The work we can’t afford not to do
To transform our pain
into an awakening of our divinity
And find it’s needed place here on earth
Even if for only periodic moments
So I can beam my own true light
And you can beam yours too
And the world slowly heals
Becoming a more beautiful place for all
One we are proud to be in
One we would never want to leave behind